Romney and Obama The Money Game – From “Romney Hood” to Reid and Pelosi's "Dirty Politics"

Obama and Romney - All About the Cash - image: darkgovernment.com (a blog about government waste)

The American Political Landscape has become one in which fundraising for campaigns continues to rule the news – the race to build the bigger “war chest” to best an opponent has run amok – the Boston Globe reports on the fact that for the third straight month, Mitt Romney’s Campaign has outraised the Obama Campaign – the headline ”Romney Trounces Obama in Fundraising for 3rd month”, begins with the question: “Can President Barack Obama raise the money he needs to hold onto the White House?”and goes on to speak of the Romney’s advantage in fundraising has brought about the unthinkable –

“While the race for voter support is tight, according to polls, Romney's robust fundraising and a crush of money from Republican-leaning political action committees have forced the president's campaign to spend heavily through the summer.”

(Boston Globe)

How much money have both candidates raised in one month? – According to the Globe, Romney at $101 million to Obama’s $75 million – both men drawing money from those who “have”, and some who “have not”. Those who have, according to the President, on the fundraising trail in Connecticut’s “wealth belt” – speaking to the “haves”, the President suggested that Romney was like “Romney-Hood”. The New York Times reporting that the President hopes that his new, easy to repeat, mantra, will take hold. It is based on one study that suggested Romney’s tax plan would raise taxes on the middle class, and favor those who had more – similar to the current tax plan if that were the case - the exact quote: “It’s like Robin Hood in reverse – it’s Romney Hood,” Mr. Obama told supporters at a fund-raiser in Stamford, Conn.” (New York Times).

It might stick, or it might not – especially since other efforts to play dirty have appeared to backfire – Romney continues to outpace the President in individual donors (or those who have not yet reached the Federal maximum, as well as those who are able to give unlimited funds, businessmen, having small to large companies are giving to Romney. On the other hand Hollywood and some on Wall Street give to the Obama Campaign (See fundraising in Connecticut – a combination of Hollywood east and the railway to Wall Street. The Obama campaign also has individual donors, but has not come close to the 2008 election haul.

It makes one wonder, who is listening? The press has been extremely negative on Mitt Romney – as expected, and yet that has, to date, failed to make a dent – (Google Mitt Romney in Google News, and one finds one negative after the next, the latest being Mitt Romney’s Religion. Mitt Romney and the Mormon Culture – from the Washington Post, is the number two headline this morning on Google news.)

Therefore, as the difference between the two “war chests” is a source of consternation for the Obama team – they put Harry Reid to work, along with Nancy Pelosi to back up Reid, who suggested that “an unnamed source” told him that Mitt Romney did not pay taxes for ten years, Nancy Pelosi chipped in and suggested Reid spoke “the truth”. These outrageous statements are so ridiculous that even the Chicago Tribune weighed in suggesting Reid was similar to a birther! (Those who believe that the President was not born in the U.S.), by stating the absurd based on pulling something “out of thin air”. – The kicker:

Someday, Reid will say something important that he genuinely wants Americans to believe. After this episode, they'll probably ignore him. We found ourselves nodding in agreement Monday with the opinion of Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, no right-wing nut he: "The politics of this squabble are delightful. But Reid has managed to draw both his party and his president into the gutter with him. ... The soaring rhetoric that Obama used in his first campaign has come to ground in the mud of Harry Reid's latter-day McCarthyism."

(The Chicago Tribune)

What’s a party to do that’s losing the “money game”? – Simple: Attack the Candidate who has the most money by attacking the donors! The Jerusalem Post’s, “Defending Sheldon Adelson’s Support for Mitt Romney”, speaks to the negatives being heaped on Mr. Adelson: “These same Democrats are silent when big wigs pump big money into their own favorite candidates’ campaigns.(Jerusalem Post)

One thing that the disparity in fund-raising does tell us, is the difference between donors – those businessmen, who create jobs, and those small donors who may or may not have a job, are giving what they can to Mitt Romney, while the President is fundraising in artistic circles – the “celebrity” circles, and those small donors who support the President and his policies. The polls, which have shown a tight race since the beginning, given the divided nature of the nation when comes to “Party Identity” rather than political ideology, suggest that the need to sway voters is what drives the campaigns to seek out those who “have” more often. In the end however, all the mud-slinging aside, all the reporting aside, it will be the 5% of the population that decides who will be the next President – unless, of course, the polls change once the glow of summer has faded into fall and the voting public begins to make up its collective mind and decide for whom they will vote in earnest. Will all the negative advertising help? To date, it appears to have done little to change the polls. It seems to some, such a waste, when millions in this nation are unemployed, or underemployed, or on fixed incomes – all being squeezed by rising costs – of everything. Would it not be a more perfect world – if the candidates were chosen on accomplishments, rhetorical skills, and the public square speeches and both candidates donating the campaign cash not spent, but stockpiled, to those who “have not?” Indeed that’s utopian, and in the long-run would not be American Politics – where, according to, and fueled by, the press, (going back decades) money talks, and the candidate with the most “Cash” wins. In the case of this election, where one candidate is obviously preferred over another by the same press, the shock and excuses regarding Mitt Romney’s continued fundraising ability, is apparent, and transparent, as are the attacks on Mr. Adelson, yet they persist. Yet, according to some pundits, this election will be based on the economy, those who have not - ironic.